Thailand’s Bitkub is the country’s leading crypto platform that lets users easily trade all kinds of cryptocurrencies.

Now, Bitkub has raised $17.8M from Thai game publisher Asphere Innovations, who snagged a 9.2% stake in return. Here’s what happened along the way.

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⛵ Not-so-smooth sailling

In 2019, Bitkub received a license from Thailand’s Ministry of Finance to operate. Shortly after in 2021, they were announced a unicorn after local bank SCB was set to acquire 51% of the company for $500M.

But the acquisition fell through in 2022.

• Due diligence exercises found problems that needed to be addressed by Bitkub’s management.
• Plus, they saw regulatory issues that needed to be resolved with Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

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😲 2 fines in 2 months

According to the SEC,  Bitkub's CTO Samret Wajanasathian bought $60,000 worth of a local token KUB, which doubled in value after the public announcement of the acquisition.

• He made the purchases around the time when SCB notified Thailand’s stock exchange of their intent to acquire Bitkub.
• Fined for insider trading! Wajanasathian was later barred from holding an executive position at the company for 12 months, and was fined $235,000 by Thailand’s SEC in 2022.

Just a month after this news broke, Thailand’s SEC fined Bitkub $636,000 for creating fake volume. This is an illicit tactic known as wash trading, in which false trades are conducted to falsely inflate the popularity of an asset.

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💴 What’s with the $$$?

Bitkub aims to use this extra capital to expand their digital asset services in Thailand. During the 2022 crypto winter, they reported $80M in revenue, a 48% decrease from the previous year and an 86% decline in profits.

• Thailand’s population is still well invested in cryptocurrency, with more than 6.2M residents (8.5% of the population!) owning crypto last year.